Democrats' cries that the Supreme Court has become a MAGA institution are way off base, according to The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.
"Today's Supreme Court takes a textualist and originalist view of legal questions, but it's no MAGA [Make America Great Again] court," the Journal's editorial board wrote in a Tuesday column.
"This term the reversal rate for the conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, not double counting cases consolidated for argument, was 67%. That's higher than the rate for the notoriously progressive Ninth Circuit. If Republican lawmakers imagine these Justices are ready to fulfill their wildest constitutional dreams, they are courting disappointment."
The Journal's editorial board backs up its assertion with 2023 term statistics supplied by the Empirical SCOTUS blog.
Less than half (43.8%) of the term's decisions were unanimous, down slightly from 2022 but higher than in 2021 (26.4%) and in the previous three years.
The justices issued unanimous 9-0 rulings in several high-profile cases that included deciding Colorado cannot remove former President Donald Trump's name from its ballot, pro-life doctors lack standing to sue the Food and Drug Administration over the abortion pill mifepristone, and the National Rifle Association can sue a New York regulator for coercing insurers to stop doing business with gun-rights groups.
The Journal's editorial board said the statistics show that 22 cases were decided 6-3, but only half produced outright ideological splits.
The Supreme Court is comprised of six conservative justices nominated by Republican presidents, and three nominated by Democrat presidents.
Democrats' latest calls for Supreme Court reform surround Monday's decision regarding presidential immunity.
The Supreme Court ruled for the first time that former presidents have some immunity from prosecution, extending the delay in the Washington criminal case against Trump on charges he plotted to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss and all but ending prospects the former president could be tried before the November election.
In a 6-3 ruling, the court returned Trump's case to the trial court to determine what is left of special counsel Jack Smith's indictment.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the "disgraceful decision by the MAGA Supreme Court — which is comprised of three justices appointed by Mr. Trump himself — enables the former President to weaken our democracy by breaking the law."
The Journal's editorial board said Schumer's assessment is incorrect.
"The Supreme Court is enforcing the constitutional separation of powers," the board wrote. "The amazing thing is that Democrats are so surprised. They unleash history's first prosecution of a former president, they're astonished when it turns up novel legal issues, and then they're outraged when the justices consider the matter in light of the Constitution.
"Who should they blame instead? Well, special counsel Jack Smith could have declined to file a Jan. 6 indictment. Or he could have written it narrowly to exclude clearly official conduct, such as Mr. Trump's consultations with his Justice Department.
"But Mr. Smith didn't do modesty. Neither did the appeals panel at the D.C. Circuit, which ruled in sweeping fashion that presidents have no immunity whatsoever. The Justices almost had to take the case."
The Journal's board also took a swipe at Democrats who claim Trump wants to rule as a king or dictator.
"Democrats denounce the Supreme Court for making the presidency too powerful, while they also denounce the justices for stopping Mr. Biden's unilateral regulatory actions, including his effort to forgive $430 billion of student loans without Congress," the editorial board wrote.
"Who really thinks he's king? The justices are keeping each branch in its constitutional lane, and those decisions will apply to President Trump, if he wins, the same as they do to President Biden."